Welch: Twitter hashtag aids real-time storm reporting

The second a photo of long lines at an Amarillo supermarket hit my Twitter feed on Feb. 24, I knew that, if the predicted blizzard occurred, the Amarillo Globe-News would need eyes and ears across the city to help report the storm.

So I retweeted the photo and included the word, #AMAblizzard.

Sticking the pound sign it the front of a phrase creates what’s called a hashtag in Twitterspeak. It’s a way to search Twitter and Instagram to find comments and photos posted on a topic.

“Whoop! My town has a hashtag! #AMAblizzard,” @Ceasarae_S tweeted in the early hours of the historic blizzard that dumped 19 inches of snow on Amarillo.

In four days, social-media users mentioned #AMAblizzard more than 1,360 times and uploaded a wealth of real-time information about emergencies, school and business closings, resident comments and photos about what was happening in their neighborhoods.

“I think it was used very effectively here as a way to organize local thoughts about the blizzard,” said Nick Gerlich, West Texas A&M University professor of marketing. “This is everything about creating a community. It brings people together who don’t know one another, and yet we’re on the same platform, passing the mic around.”

Morgan Schutters, an Amarillo Realtor, tweeted the image I used to start the hashtag avalanche.

“In line to buy groceries at 45th/Bell United for 50 minutes,” Schutters, aka @MorganTXRealtor, said.

Social media users answered the @amarilloglobe call for photos and videos.

In all, they contributed a couple hundred photos via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Vine, to our chronicle of the storm.

Messages about empty grocery shelves and prayers for #snowdays fluttered through the Twitterverse on the evening of Feb. 24.

Soon came tweets about school and college cancellations, followed by celebratory tweets — by the dozens — on Monday morning when #snowdays were announced.

Closures of nonessential city operations, businesses and highways ensued, prompting Gerlich — @nickgerlich — to tweet, “Wouldn’t it be easier to just list the 1 or 2 things still open? #AMAblizzard”

Adults also relished in their break from the work world.

“#AMAblizzard what shall I do with spare snow-in time?learn to sing?learn to dance?learn to make bologna tongue?learn to wiggle my ears?” @806STYLE asked.

Warnings about accidents and hazardous road conditions also showed up in #AMAblizzard Twitter postings. The immediacy of the platform makes it extremely useful in emergency situations, Gerlich said.

“I think, especially for younger people, Twitter allows you to reach an audience that’s probably not as tuned in to traditional media,” Gerlich said. “Even from my old-geezer perspective, Twitter’s the first place I go when there’s bad weather. It’s my CB radio.”

Some directed messages and photos to media beyond the Texas Panhandle.

Cantore, who has more than 179,500 Twitter followers, retweeted the photograph, giving it wide exposure. It was also used in a Weather Channel broadcast, Patrick Warminski said.

CNN found Amarilloan @jasonboyett because of the blizzard videos he posted to the Internet via Vine, another social media platform. The network asked Boyett, a professional writer who also ghosts social media posts for corporations and others, to upload the Vine posts as a CNN ireporter.

“It does seem like the first time that a local (hashtag) has really gotten big like that,” Boyett said. “I know there have been occasional small uses, like 50 tweets.

“I think, at a certain point on Monday, everybody who was on Twitter or Instagram in Amarillo and was at least a familiar user of those platforms was using that hashtag.”

Interact with Karen Smith Welch at karen.welch@amarillo.com, facebook.com/karensmithwelch or @karen_welch on Twitter. Welch also blogs at amarillo.com.